Category: foliage

We’ve been away for a few days and I’m going to need a bit of time to get up to speed. I’ve got some interesting ideas, but it will take me a bit of time to write and edit them, so be a little patient. Didn’t take any pictures. It rained the entire time we were away, so there was no boating and mostly, Garry was trying to learn how to use a microphone and cut audio tracks — something with which I am NOT familiar, so I couldn’t be of much help.

Japanese maple in full leaf

My primary function seems to have been surrendering my Mac to Garry’s professional ambitions. I didn’t use it much anyway.

Meanwhile, I’ve got some trees!

Trees along the river and the pathway to the roadSun through the trees

Either I just do it and then have a lifetime to think about how I — if I’d thought about it more — could have done it better or preferably, not at all. As an alternative, I think about it, decide not to do it, then spend years wishing I had done it.

As a third choice, I think, rethink, change my mind, begin the process, stop — write something or take a few pictures — while completely forgetting what I was going to do. When finally I remember my original intention, it doesn’t seem all that important so I read a book.

Why is beauty associated with mortality?

Because dead people putrefy? Because rotting bodies aren’t as attractive as live ones? Even when that individual — when alive — wasn’t beautiful they look worse when dead.

As proof of this statement, I have yet to see a single advertisement for anything using rotting corpses. I mean — seriously — dead people don’t enjoy beer and don’t look good in snug jeans. I’m pretty sure if advertisers aren’t using corpses (who would probably not need to be paid, so it would definitely be to their advantage to work with the dead), it’s probably because corpses are not attractive.

But when I die, hey, if you think this is a good idea, by all means. I’m pretty sure I won’t care.

If everyone spoke their mind (told the literal truth), would this world be a better place?

No. It would be just like it is but worse. Life would be harder, colder, and even more full of blowhards who don’t bother to give a moment’s thought before running their mouths. It’s bad enough now. That would make it oh so much worse.

It would finally and completely eliminate manners (such as they are). It would dispose of any remaining civility, kindness, politeness, delicacy, and good taste.

Your mouth is not supposed to be where random crap just falls out. We are supposed to think. That is why we have brains — which are supposed to be in charge of our mouths. Ponder that.

In the toilet, things just “fall out.” When they stink, you flush them away.

Sadly, once said, you have put it into the world and can never make it go away. There’s no flushing your words. They sear permanently on the minds of whoever is unlucky enough to hear them.

Your mouth isn’t supposed to be the verbal end of your anus. What comes out of it is supposed to have polish. Class. Wit. Elegance. Kindness. Compassion. Love. Maybe even brilliance. Toddlers say whatever flows into their unkempt young minds and that’s okay. They were born to learn and we teach them to not grow up and continue to act like toddlers.

Remove the training in manners and civility and the world would be all adult toddlers. The idea is nauseating. We have one of those in the White House. Isn’t that guy our national huckleberry?

I am sick to death of people who think they are “special” because they don’t know when to shut up.

We went to a party (left early) where one (drunken) woman was blathering endlessly about how proud she was to have started smoking again now that she was done with chemo and cancer. She was proud of this. She has a daughter. What’s her message?

The first amendment protects free speech. It isn’t a license for everyone to say anything, anytime, anywhere, under any and all circumstances.

What happened to class? Grammar? Elegant phrasing? Facts before opinions? Where went wit and cleverness? Concepts based on research? Has intelligence gone completely out of style? If it has, we are doomed.

Can religious beliefs affect scientific thinking?

Amongst the stupid, yes. Brighter people don’t seem to have this problem.

An attitude of gratitude: If you’d like to, share some gratitude in a photo, written, or song.

The day is bright and sunny and for this small thing, praised be the rain gods for going somewhere else to do their thing.

Now, I’m going to put on a pair of sandals and go take a few pictures before the sky goes gray and the next rain comes.

Someone wrote that the weather is perfect for being outside. “Not too hot, not too cold, and the bugs aren’t in full attack mode.” Or something like that. People who don’t live here don’t “get” our bugs.

We don’t just have insects.

We have hordes of insects with jaws and stingers. Tiny ones that get into your eyes and ears and clothing.

Evil ones that carry disease and vicious ones that require trips to the doctor and antibiotics. And of course, the slithery ones that eat your trees for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until they are naked. The trees are naked. The bugs are furry and itchy.

Photo: Garry Armstrong

Photo: Garry Armstrong

Photo: Garry Armstrong

This year, so far, the bugs are “normal.” I see no evidence of returning gypsy moth caterpillars and I just hope that we are back to normal again. Nothing more vicious than mosquitoes and flies seems to be out there, discounting the ever-present ants, of course.

So this is our forest. It has come into bloom. Yesterday, actually. You could watch the leaves unfurl. It isn’t summertime, so I think we are going to get a week or two of real spring, the typically missing season around New England. Not counting that it has been raining three out of every four days.

It’s cold out and there’s snow in the driveway. We haven’t found a plow guy yet, but we live in hope. As long as he or she (we’ve never found a she who drives a plow, but why not?) gets here before we need an oil delivery, we’re good.

Martha Kennedy suggested YakTrax so we can walk up our frozen driveway and not fall on our collective heads and the dogs like snow a lot better than they like rain. They hate rain.

Well, to be fair, Gibbs feels that the sofa is the right place for him pretty much all the time, but the Duke loves everything. Bonnie only goes out when it’s 72 degrees with a light breeze.

Home

Never you mind. We will survive winter. I just wish it hadn’t decided to begin before Thanksgiving.

The last time we had a big snow in early November, we got 120 inches for the season which was an all-time record. Even if you really like snow, that is a great deal of snow and a lot of money for plowing.

Meanwhile, I’m still living in my dreams of the autumn we almost had. Don’t ruin my dreams. I need them.

I still have autumnal pictures, even though it’s raining. The wind came up and all day, it was like being in an oak leaf storm, with whirling leaves everywhere. It’s supposed to be over tomorrow morning, but the next day, new storm.

A rose and a brilliant Japanese maple.

The weather never really stays nice anymore. We haven’t had a single weekend without rain or three days of sunshine since last winter.

Evelyne Holingue commented that in France they now say “Il n’y a plus de saison.” Which translates to “There are no more seasons.”

There’s definitely a seasonal blurring. We have winter and we have summer, but winter is longer than it used it be with intermittent weeks of almost summer-like weather followed by blizzards. Spring doesn’t happen and summer is one storm after another.

And there are places where the weather is more extreme than here.

Really, there are no more seasons and I think if you want to understand what climate change means, this is the beginning, that blurring of seasons and the loss of the “interim” short seasons of spring and fall.

I don’t know what comes after this because although we’ve always had erratic weather patterns here, this is somehow different. It feels different. I’m just hoping the rivers don’t rise.

This valley can flood. We’ve seen it, but never in November. Flooding is something for spring rains and snow melt-off. Meanwhile, it sure is raining hard outside.

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